"But there are bright minds working on new antibiotics, energy efficient cars, cheaper building materials etc. Some of the best and brightest minds are also smashing atoms in particle accelerators, charting the cosmos, composing symphonies, educating new minds, and, yes, pushing the limits of computer connectedness to make many lives on this planet just that much nicer."
Speaking as one of those people who took a nice little detour from the world of money to live on the edge of technology, let me assure you that it wasn't a smart financial choice. Most of the people who are smashing atoms and charting the cosmos are economic martyrs. Most of the ones who aren't martyrs come from places where an advanced degree at a US school will catapult them into higher social classes. That doesn't really happen in the US anymore -- people think it's more sensible to drop out of college to make websites, and I can't really argue with them.
Irrational or not, my opinion is that the world would be 1000% better if we could somehow create an economy that rewarded young people for doing research into antibiotics half as well as it rewards them for creating social-networking widgets.
Irrational or not, my opinion is that the world would be 1000% better if we could somehow create an economy that rewarded young people for doing research into antibiotics half as well as it rewards them for creating social-networking widgets.
I agree. It's also a shame that a professional basketball player makes around 100 times more than a professional school teacher. That's just how it is.
Professional athletes making too much money is not the cause of professional teachers making too little money.
Hundreds of thousands of people are willing to pay $25 - $1000 for a ticket to a basketball game to see those professional basketball players play, which earns them their 100xTeacher salary.
Even more people want to pay less taxes which go to the pay of professional (public) school teachers.
But wouldn't it also be a shame if professional basketball players were being paid $30,000 and the left over billions of dollars were split between the 30 owners of those teams? I'm willing to bet that the rich basketball players give back more dollars to their communities than the even richer basketball team owners do (or even would if they held back that extra money from the players).
People not getting paid for doing something that other people pay for them to do is a shame. Right now, people are not willing to pay for professional (public) teachers to teach. (Some people are able, and do, pay for professional private school teachers to teach.... if they aren't getting paid enough then they are in the same position that an NBA player would be in if their team owners were keeping all the money for themselves.)
Teachers have freely chosen their economic situation. The price of a job for life is that a good teacher's salary will be averaged with their colleagues who are utterly incompetent (who went into teaching knowing full well that once they got their foot in the door they would be untouchable).
If teachers want to improve their lot, they'll disband their unions. A pro athlete can lose his place on the team in a heartbeat...
When a specific pro athlete loses his place on a team, he is replaced by another pro athlete that will absorb the money.
While not being able to easily remove (or identify) bad teachers is a problem, the solution to that issue will not increase the pool of money available to pay the remaining good teachers (unless the solution involves removing but not replacing the bad teachers)
A teacher's salary is less "an average of the salary of their colleagues" as it is a division of the money allocated to education from taxes (and fundraisers).
Most of the people who are smashing atoms and charting the cosmos are economic martyrs.
Baloney. Here in the Netherlands, scientists working at universities and research institutes get a pretty decent salary. Sure, they don't get filthy rich, but fortunately there are more than enough people who don't care about that. The thing is: if getting rich is your primary objective, you're not going to save the world anyway. People working on antibiotics just because it's the best paying job, will leave as soon as another job gets them more money. You can't solve that by fixing the system, because it's not the system that's broken.
"Baloney. Here in the Netherlands, scientists working at universities and research institutes get a pretty decent salary. Sure, they don't get filthy rich, but fortunately there are more than enough people who don't care about that."
Maybe it's baloney in the Netherlands, but it's not baloney in the states. I do happen to know what a post-doc makes in the Netherlands (I had a job offer there), and it wasn't anything to get excited about (it was about on par with the earning power of a post-doc in a mid-sized city in the US -- which isn't much). But you're right about one thing: nobody is in danger of getting rich.
That said, I believe you're overlooking one incredibly important difference between life in the US and life in the Netherlands: we don't have a robust social welfare system to support us in old age. Taking 10+ years to do a PhD and post-doc in the US eats into your prime earning years, and puts retirement at risk. From this perspective, the "system" is indeed broken; there's a much stronger financial incentive to start saving while you're young.
€ 2800 per month is definitely not a bad salary. You're right, I can't speak for the US, but here you can live a comfortable life with that (and if you keep rising through the ranks, you'll have a nice retirement when you're done). And I should probably mention that getting your PhD is a paid job here as well (at least the first four years, in which you're expected to obtain your PhD). Anyone who thinks that is economic martyrdom isn't going to solve poverty, no matter how the system works. You just don't get to be a businessman and a hero at the same time.
If that's a salary, it's a pre-tax number. I don't know the tax code in the Netherlands, but in Belgium that would amount to about EUR 1700 after taxes. That's enough to live a comfortable life, but don't even think about buying a house with that [alone].
That's enough to live a comfortable life, but don't even think about buying a house with that [alone].
That's my point: it's not economic martyrdom. Sure, it's limiting, but it's not some huge sacrifice that you can't possibly expect people to make.
It just sounds as if TFA is saying "Woe me, I am smart and talented and I want to make the world better, but society expects me to do that for less than what I can make somehwere else." Well, boo hoo. How about you (the writer of TFA) be thankful for being "just" smart and talented and be satisfied with a decent salary? Or else, just quit claiming that you want to save the world.
(Disclaimer: I have a master's degree, not a PhD, and I make considerably less than 2800 pre-tax with a job that requires that master's degree. This is not abnormal. And yes, I live a comfortable life)
It's not about "filthy rich" it's about living a normal, middle-class lifestyle. It takes as long to become a research scientist as it does to become a doctor, dentist, etc. And the pay is not even half.
Then again in the UK anything "technical" doesn't get a lot of respect. Engineers do a bit better than scientists, but nowhere near lawyers or accountants. Science and engineering are not even considered among "the professions". IT is one of the few niches where meritocracy at least prevails, not even there is it guaranteed tho'.
Speaking as one of those people who took a nice little detour from the world of money to live on the edge of technology, let me assure you that it wasn't a smart financial choice. Most of the people who are smashing atoms and charting the cosmos are economic martyrs. Most of the ones who aren't martyrs come from places where an advanced degree at a US school will catapult them into higher social classes. That doesn't really happen in the US anymore -- people think it's more sensible to drop out of college to make websites, and I can't really argue with them.
Irrational or not, my opinion is that the world would be 1000% better if we could somehow create an economy that rewarded young people for doing research into antibiotics half as well as it rewards them for creating social-networking widgets.